Shadow Tag Read Online Free PDF

crowd, leapt onto an empty pedal boat, and set off across the surface. By the time Reilly and Malone reached the shore, he was a good thirty yards away from the bank.
    “Come on,” Reilly yelled as he charged through the crowd and grabbed a pedal boat that had just come in.
    Malone jumped onto it alongside him.
    They started pedaling.
    Up ahead, their target was now halfway across.
    “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Malone said as he pedaled furiously. “I can swim faster than this.”
    “You wanna go for it?” Reilly asked. “Be my guest.”
    Malone glanced at the water around them. It was freezing, and he was fully dressed. By the time he shook his clothes off, the man would be on the opposite shore.
    It wasn’t a particularly inviting prospect.
    “Maybe another time,” Malone said. “Keep spinning.”
    Minutes later, their target rammed his pedal boat onto the bank, jumped off, and sprinted away.
    The agents did the same.
    They crossed Rotten Row and were all heading down towards the Edinburgh Gate and the gleaming glass towers of One Hyde Park.
    “We need a bike, a cop, or something,” Reilly said between labored breaths.
    “How about horses?” Malone asked.
    “As long as they don’t have guys with swords on them, I’m happy,” Reilly quipped, panting heavily.
    “If he gets to the big department stores in Knightsbridge, we’ll definitely lose him.”
    The target reached South Carriage Drive and rushed across it, easily avoiding the sparse traffic heading up the single lane.
    Reilly saw him disappear behind a white van that was parked by the Pan Statue. He and Malone didn’t slow down. They crossed the road and rounded the van—only the target was gone.
    They stopped running and for a split second, Reilly didn’t get it. Then he turned to face the side the of the van and saw the target inside.
    He wasn’t alone.
    Another man was in there with him.
    They were both pointing guns at the two agents.
    “Get in, now,” the new guy barked as he beckoned them with his gun.
    Reilly looked at Malone. They were both out of breath and exhausted. Putting up a fight, in their present condition, was simply not an option.
    Malone nodded grudgingly.
    And with that, they both boarded the van.

9
    “So you have something already?”
    The man who asked to be called Abul Mowt stood by the door, his face alive with expectation. “That was fast,” he told the two authors. “You guys are really good.” He turned and gave his two goons a couple of slow, smug nods that said, See, that’s why I’m the grand poobah here. He faced his prisoners again. “Tell me.”
    “Actually,” Khoury said, “it’s something I’ve been working on for a book.”
    “It’s good,” Berry added. “More than good. You’ll see.”
    “I’m listening,” their captor said.
    “Okay. So it involves hacking.”
    Khoury waited, watching the reaction on his captor’s face.
    A couple of cracks appeared across Abul Mowt’s forehead as he frowned with curiosity. “You mean, like hacking into a nuclear power plant to cause a meltdown?”
    “No, no, please,” the writer said. “That’s old school. Been done to death. Plus they’ve been onto that one since before 9/11, before Y2K even. Too many firewalls. You’d never get in.”
    “Where you can get in, though, is the banks,” Berry put in.
    “The banks?” Abul Mowt looked displeased, his tone rising. “I’m not interested in stealing money. I want pain.”
    “Hang on. We’re going to give you pain,” Khoury said.
    “We’re not talking about stealing money,” Berry added. “We’re talking about wiping it out. All records of it.”
    Abul Mowt seemed confused. “You want to wipe it out? You can’t wipe out cash.”
    “No,” Khoury explained, “We don’t mean get rid of it. We mean wipe out all records of it. Everything. Everyone’s bank records, savings, deposits. Credit card debt, bank loans, mortgages. All records—wiped out. In one go.”
    He glanced at